Have been working on an interesting text by Sakya Pandita on the history of Cakrasamvara.

According to this history, the first human being to receive Cakrasamvara was Saraha I, the teacher of the tantric siddha, Nāgārjuna. In terms of when Saraha lived, he does not really say, apart from asserting that Saraha is present at Shri Parvata (Sri Sailam in modern India) in Andhra Pradesha as a sambhogakāya.

Luhipa was the disciple of Saraha II aka Shavaripa. Sapan definitely situates him during the reign of the famed Buddhist king of Bengal, Shri Dharmapala, whose reign extended circa 775 to 810 CE.

Luihipa was a scribe in the court of Dharmapāla until he met Savaripa. We do not know when Luhipa was active during this 35 year period, but since his retreat was 9-12 years, and since legend holds that Dharmapāla became a disciple of Luhipa, we assume a later date for Luhipa and put his encounter with Dharmapāla around 810. Supposedly Dharmapāla left his kingdom and took a job as a pounder of rice in what is now known as Orrisa becoming known as the siddha Demgipa.

From Demgipa on, a significant feature of Cakrasamvara practice is the requirement that high cast practitioners take low caste occupations under low cast woman.

In any event, we have a fairly firm range to date the Cakrasamvara tantra from -- given this we can presume that the Cakrasamvara must date to the early 8th century CE. Since it mentions the Guhyasamaja and a number of other tantras, we can date those, as well as Saraha I, the first Siddha, to the late 7th century CE.

Also Situ Panchen asserts that Lohipa revealed the Yoginisamcarya tantra, which details the process of the sadhana practice.

This has a happy consequence for the Mahamudra text in the Vima Nyinthig which mentions Saraha by name.

"Absolute Truth is not an object of analytical discourse or great discriminating wisdom,It is realized through the blessing grace of the Guru and fortunate Karmic potential.Like this, mistaken ideas of discriminating wisdom are clarified."

May any merit generated by on-line discussionBe dedicated to the Ultimate Benefit of All Sentient Beings.

Enochian wrote:There was actually a recognition school of Trika shaivism. Surprisingly there is zero information about it on the internet. But in Gavin Flood's book "The Tantric Body", he talks about it. They even had a mirror analogy like Dzogchen.

Good point. There's not a great deal of information available out there on tantric practices within Shaivism either.

The Kula were considered degenerate outsiders by some other Shaivites and there is an interesting criticism (by Ksemaraja I think) where he describes a high born Brahmin lying in his own drunken vomit after a session with some dodgy tantrics - his face licked by a dog!It may go some way to explaining why some Hindus believed that tantra had been introduced, by the will of Shiva, into Buddhism in order to pollute and ultimately destroy it. In contrast to the Buddhist version which has Chakrasamvara rescuing the world by appropriating the mandala.

Still doesn't explain why so little of the Kaula material is available? There's certainly not much obvious similarity between the Spanda or Monist schools and the generation/completion Chakrasavara practices, as far as I can ascertain. The 24 Shakti Pithas being perhaps an obvious anecdotal cross-reference.

Still doesn't explain why so little of the Kaula material is available? There's certainly not much obvious similarity between the Spanda or Monist schools and the generation/completion Chakrasavara practices, as far as I can ascertain.

The reason is very little of the vast corpus has been edited and published, and reading manuscripts is extremely hard work. There are only a handful of people in the world who have read broadly enough to get a full sense of the various Śaiva systems. Witness the confusion of terms like "Kashmiri Shaivism," Kaula, Trika, Krama, Spanda, Pratyabhijñā, Monist, Northern vs. Southern Shaivism, etc. Prof. Sanderson's website has a treasure-trove of articles (all required reading, IMO), but unfortunately the book-length article “The Śaiva Exegesis of Kashmir”---which offers the best general outline of the scriptural, ritual, and philosophical classifications used by Kashmiri exegetes---is not available on-line.

An article which is available, “Swami Lakshman Joo and His Place in the Kashmirian Śaiva Tradition," discusses the state of the living tradition at the time Sanderson began studying in Kashmir in the 1970s, and the reasons for its historical decline.

But yes, Buddhist systems of the two stages such as the Cakrasamvara traditions don't seem to have much in common with any Śaiva system.